J4* THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



the choicest specimens. It is induced by damp. The only preventive is ample 

 room outdoors, and a free admission of air to plants under glass. 



Mice and Millipedes. Mice will take the fruits and pile them in heaps, then eat 

 the seeds. Small steel spring traps baited with cheese will secure the depredators. 

 Slugs are very troublesome. Nitrate of soda is a good remedy and beneficial to 

 the coming crop ; so also is soot. Millipedes are destructive to the fruit. Pieces of 

 mangold-wurtzel placed in the mulching about the plants before the fruit ripens will 

 attract them, when they are readily destroyed. 



Eelworm (Aphelenchus fragaria) attack produces a curious malformation of the 

 flower stems and buds ; it was given the name of the " cauliflower disease " by Miss 

 Ormerod, and is figured and described in her " Fourteenth Report of Injurious In- 

 sects." It was prevalent at St. Paul's Cray, Kent, in May, 1890. Occasional plants, 

 however, have been noticed in highly manured plantations for many years past. 

 Though considered to have been introduced with peat-moss litter, it was certainly 

 fostered by using manure from horses fed with clover hay. All infested plants should 

 be burned. Excessive applications, especially of unreduced stable manure, should be 

 avoided in presence of an attack, using a mixture of superphosphate and kainit in 

 equal parts in the autumn, and nitrate of soda in the spring instead of humus-forming 

 substances. 



The grubs of the spotted garden gnat (Tipula maculosa) sometimes cut off the 

 flower-stalks close to the ground. Searching for the grubs, which usually hide in 

 the ground near the plants, is the surest remedy, but nitrate of soda dressings usually 

 paralyze them. Caterpillars occasionally prey on the foliage. They are removed by 

 hand-picking and squeezing. Weevils also prey on the foliage and the grubs on the 

 roots (see page 219, present volume). Cuckoo spit (Aphrophora spumai-ia) is sometimes 

 a nuisance on both outdoor and indoor plants, attacking the flower stems and young 

 leaflets. It is destroyed by crushing with the hand, or syringing with a solution of 

 soft-soap, 1 ounce dissolved in a gallon of hot water, adding a wineglassful of 

 tobacco juice, applying when lukewarm, and washing off with clean water an hour 

 afterwards. 



Aphides are not particularly troublesome on outdoor plants, but if they appear 

 syringe them with tobacco juice diluted with six times the quantity of water. If this 

 is done before the flowers expand, and rain does not fall before the fruit is formed, the 

 tobacco must be washed off. When in frames aphides infest the scales of the crowns. 



